


Melody, Unchained

by somehowunbroken



Series: Unchained Melody [1]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Character Death, F/M, Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-02
Updated: 2011-06-02
Packaged: 2017-10-20 00:52:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/207070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somehowunbroken/pseuds/somehowunbroken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They're not hurting anybody.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Melody, Unchained

**Author's Note:**

> Oh my God, I cannot even - okay, so. I did not mean to write this. I was talking to my H50 enabler (you know who you are - hell, everyone else probably does by now too) about this prompt that I saw at [](http://h50kinkmeme.livejournal.com/profile)[**h50kinkmeme**](http://h50kinkmeme.livejournal.com/) and was sort of thinking about writing. "It's Steve/Mary," I said. "Underage. A losing your virginity thing."
> 
> "Write it," she said.
> 
> "I don't write het," I replied. "Or incest. Or underage things."
> 
> "Wriiiiiiite iiiiiiiiit," she said. (Or something. I'm reasonably sure there were more words, and I'm definitely sure it was less whiny.)
> 
> And then I wrote it.
> 
> I know - I know, okay - that only like four people are going to read this, and that includes me and said enabler. This will probably lose me flist people, too. I am aware of this. I... am still posting it, because despite all my hesitations and the squick level involved for a lot of people (read: high, very high), I think it came out pretty well. That's not a feeling I have about fic very often, so. I will not be offended if you skip this for any reason at all. I only ask that you don't hate on it. I am aware that I'm going to the special hell, okay, I don't need you to tell me that. If it's not your thing, just skip, please, for your sake and for mine.
> 
> Still with me? Gonna give it a try? Okay. Since we don't know for sure: for the purpose of this fic, Steve is two years older than Mary. (I'm sure this will get jossed later, which is part of why I'm stating it here now.)

“Come on,” Mary says with a laugh. “It’ll be fun.”

“You’re insane,” Steve tells her, but she can see that spark of interest, that flare he can’t quite keep hidden. “Why would you even say-”

“Because it’ll be _fun_ ,” she repeats, walking purposefully to stand in front of her brother, who’s sitting on the edge of his desk. She’s small enough and he’s tall enough that they’re almost eye-level; Mom says she’ll hit a growth spurt soon, but Steve’s just come out of one, and he’s almost six feet tall now. He towers over her standing, but like this, she can look him straight in the eye.

Mary had barely noticed when Steve had hit the growth spurt, except to note that he was suddenly inhaling food like a vacuum. “He’s always eating something,” she’d complained to Leilani at lunch one day, tracking Steve with her eyes as he crossed the other side of the cafeteria. “Doesn’t even matter what – mostly it’s junk food, chips and Twinkies and soda. I wish I could eat like that.”

“Yeah,” Leilani had giggled. “But _look_ at him, Mary. He’s so-”

And she’d just giggled some more, and Ashley and Niri had joined her, and Mary had rolled her eyes and taken a sip from her juice.

But then she’d looked.

Steve is – okay, he’s always been her brother. He’s always had her back, has been ready to stick up for her or whatever, so it’s not like he’s not a good guy. And when she starts looking at him objectively, not sister-looking, she’s a little surprised to find that he’s kind of cute. Really, really cute, in fact.

“I’d make out with him,” one of the other girls had said, and it sent this quick burst of something through Mary, something like fire. Something that she’d immediately wanted back.

So now she’s here, standing a few inches from her extremely cute brother, and yeah, okay, this isn’t exactly something brothers and sisters do, right? Except how she kind of really wants to, and Steve’s not exactly pushing her away.

“Fun,” Steve tries, licking his lips, “fun is hanging out with Lono and Jace, fun is football and surfing, Mary, this is not-”

“Not right now, it isn’t,” she says impatiently, and then she leans in and mashes their mouths together and rests her hand on Steve’s thigh.

And – okay, so she doesn’t have a lot of experience with kissing. It’s not like she hasn’t before, but she hasn’t done it too much. She doesn’t pull back, though, just keeps pressing their lips together and moving them around a little, and suddenly Steve breathes out a little and slides his hand up into her hair and kisses her and wow, okay, this is nothing like she’s been kissed before. This isn’t Doug beneath the bleachers, both of them awkward and a little nervous, this is her brother in his bedroom and Steve? Steve is good at kissing. Steve is _awesome_ at kissing, and he’s got a hand in her hair and a hand on her arm and his tongue is in her mouth, and that feeling, that hot rush of whatever it is, it’s back and it’s collecting in her belly and she just – wants.

“Mary,” Steve gasps, pulling his head back. She’s never seen him like this, eyes open wide and pupils all blown up like that. “Mary, we can’t – we-”

“Sure we can,” Mary whispers to him, and she takes a breath and leans in to kiss him again and moves the hand on his thigh up a few inches, and oh, _oh_.

She moves her hand carefully, trying to unbutton his pants and pull the front open, to get her hand inside his boxer-briefs and around him. Steve makes this choking noise into her mouth like she’s hurting him, but when she stills her hand he moves his hips so he slides through her fingers.

“Mary,” he says. “You – you’re my _sister_.”

“I’m on the pill,” she murmurs. “We’ll use a condom.”

Steve stares at her for a few seconds but then it’s like something breaks, like he just stops fighting against Mary’s insistence and his own doubt and goes for it. He gets a hand back in her hair and skims the other down her side until it’s around her hip, big and warm and pulling her in. He’s got his legs spread apart and she fits neatly between them, her hand still wrapped around his dick in his pants, and Steve’s moving his hand up a little, lifting her shirt until it’s gathered under her armpits. He pulls his mouth away from hers and looks her straight in the eye.

“Tell me,” he says in a rush, his thumb rubbing at her nipple through her bra. “Mary, you have to – do you really-”

“Touch me,” she replies. Steve’s kind of a headcase sometimes, she knows, as if she’d tell him to stop now that she’s getting what she came in here for. “Take it off, reach in, whatever, Steve, just-” She breaks off when Steve leans his head down and closes his lips around her nipple through the material of the bra. It’s thin, kind of lacy, and she can feel the heat of Steve’s mouth, the tip of his tongue flicking up against her a little hesitantly.

“Oh,” Mary breathes out, closing her eyes. “Oh.”

“Is it-” Steve says against her chest, mouth barely an inch form the wet patch on her bra. “Is that good?”

“Yeah,” Mary groans, wondering if it’s bad form for her to shimmy a little to the left and push herself back into Steve’s mouth. “Please, Steve-”

He goes back to it with a vengeance, licking and rubbing his lips against her nipple through the material. One of his hands goes underneath her bra on the other side, tracing delicately over the skin on her breast, finding her other nipple and tracing his fingertips over it.

“Steve,” Mary gasps out, reaching up with her free hand and grabbing his arm. Her other hand has gone totally still in Steve’s pants, and she carefully draws it out and latches onto Steve’s other forearm before she squeezes there, too.

“You can-” he replies, pulling back and grabbing one of her hands, guiding it back towards his pants. “Just-”

“No,” she says firmly, and Steve stops – stops touching her everywhere, pulls back entirely, and Mary has to grab his hands in hers and back up a little tugging until Steve stands and follows. “Come on, Steve, come on.”

She sits on the bed and pulls her shirt off over her head, then unhooks her bra and tosses it to the side, too. She looks up when she’s done, and Steve is just – staring at her.

“You’re really pretty,” he blurts out, and then his cheeks go really, really red. Mary considers teasing him, but smiles after a minute.

“Oh, please,” she says, trying for confident, but she sounds kind of nervous to her own ears. “It’s gonna kill me, not being able to tell my friends that I slept with the cutest guy in school.”

Steve goes even redder and ducks his head, but there’s this really adorable smile on his face, like he’s really happy she said that. He pulls his own shirt off and Mary takes him in again, like she had the other day, and it’s like she’s seeing him for the first time. He’s thin but he’s got nice muscles, the beginnings of a six-pack and some hair on his chest. Mary smiles up at him and pats the bed beside her, and he sits down like he’s not sure what to do next.

“You actually want to,” he says, unsure, and Mary rolls her eyes and climbs into his lap and kisses him again, pressing their chests together and rubbing herself against where his dick is still trapped in his boxer-briefs.

“Yes,” she says when they break apart, just in case Steve hadn’t gotten the message from that. He laughs a little and grabs her around the waist, rolling until he’s on top. He props himself up on his arms and leans in to kiss her again and again and again until she’s moving her hips against his and he’s breathing hard into her shoulder. Mary taps him on the arm.

“You have condoms, right?” she asks, mortified that she’d forgotten something that important in thinking about this, but Steve nods and reaches into his bedstand and pulls one out of a sock that’s folded neatly into the drawer.

“Have you ever-” he asks her suddenly, pressing their hips together and pulling back quickly.

“No,” Mary tells him honestly. And then it occurs to her- “Have you?”

“No,” he chokes out. “This much, yeah, but actually – no.”

“We’ll figure it out,” she says, reaching up to brush that stupid long piece of hair that Steve refuses to cut out of his face. It’s long enough to tuck behind his ear, so she does, and when she focuses back on Steve’s face, he’s got his eyes closed and he’s breathing hard.

“Okay,” he says, rolling off the bed and standing in one quick movement. He’s pushing his pants off his hips and they hit the floor only a second before his underpants, and then he’s standing in front of her, completely naked and okay, wow, there’s seeing pictures in a health textbook and then there’s the real thing, and they’re not as alike as Mary had thought. Naked men, Mary decides, look silly.

There’s this unsure look on Steve’s face again, so Mary lifts her hips off of the bed and slides out of her jeans and panties, letting them slide to the floor.

“You really are pretty,” Steve says softly, walking to the very edge of the bed and resting his hand on her shin. “I’m not just saying it, Mary. You – you’re pretty.”

This time Mary can feel her own cheeks get hot as she smiles back. “Thanks. You, too. Well, not pretty, but you’re-” She slaps a hand across her mouth as Steve grins down at her – and that’s the Steve she knows, confident and a little ridiculous, so she grabs the condom with her free hand and slaps it into his palm.

Steve stares down at it for a minute, and Mary sits up, tugging on his arm until he plops down beside her. “We don’t have to,” she says quietly. “I know I kind of – but if you really don’t want to, Steve, I’m not gonna hate you or anything.”

“No,” he says, smiling at her a little. “But if you changed your mind-”

“Nope,” she grins, and he smiles back at her, and then he tears the package open and pulls out the condom. Mary’s got about a second to wonder how it’s going to fit – there’s no way it’s big enough to fit over Steve’s dick – but Steve rolls it on and it stretches and goes pretty much all the way up to close around the base.

Mary realizes she’s staring when Steve laughs a little, and she looks up to see him looking at her with a smile on his face that’s kind of nice, like he thinks she’s being especially cute right now for whatever reason. She leans in and pulls his face down to meet hers, and they kiss for a few minutes. Steve leans into her slowly, and he runs his hands all up and down her chest and stomach. Mary feels him wrap his arms around her and cradle her to him, and then she’s being tilted backwards until she’s flat out on the bed. Steve’s above her again, but this time there’s no clothing between them, nothing preventing Mary from getting her hands on his skin.

“If you need me to stop,” Steve starts, and he sounds so serious, like he wants Mary to hear and remember every word. “Promise me you’ll tell me if you need me to stop, okay?”

“Promise,” Mary says instantly.

“I mean it,” Steve says, looking her straight in the eyes. “This – if you haven’t before, I’m gonna hurt you, and-”

“I’d rather it was you than someone else,” Mary offers. “At least I know that you’ll stop if I say stop.”

“I will,” Steve vows, and it’s not like Mary doubted it before, but now she’s absolutely positive that Steve’s got her.

“Okay,” she says, smiling at him. “Ready when you are.”

Steve leans down and kisses her again, his mouth burning on hers. She keeps her hands moving, up into Steve’s hair, down his back, holding the curve of his ass in her palms. Steve’s hand moves down her body, rubbing at her nipple again, skimming across her stomach, and finally dragging down between her legs. He rests his hand there for a minute, just holding still, and then he bends a finger and pushes it inside her.

It’s a little weird, but in a good way; it’s different from her own finger, that’s for sure, bigger and rougher, but it’s not weird in a bad way. Steve moves his finger a lot, in and out and wiggling around inside, and then he pulls it out and pushes two back in. It’s more than she’s ever had before – two of Steve’s fingers are like three of hers, and she’s never gone that far before – but it’s not as big as Steve’s dick, which is pressed against her leg. Steve is moving his hips a little, rubbing up and down her leg, and Mary doubts that Steve’s doing it on purpose.

Two fingers becomes three, stretching her open and moving, always moving around. Steve stops after a while, pulling his fingers out and looking back up at her as he moves his hips until he’s settled between her legs. “Last chance to change your mind,” he says softly, and Mary reaches up for him, kissing him as well as she can as she runs her hands up and down his back again.

“Haven’t changed my mind,” she tells him when she rests her head back on his pillow, and Steve smiles and rests his forehead on hers as he reaches down and guides himself into her.

Mary hisses as Steve pushes in; it hurts, but it’s not unbearable. Steve freezes, stops moving entirely, and he looks down at her with a weird look on his face, like he’s halfway concerned and half out of his mind. “Mary?”

“Keep going,” she instructs, and he moves his hips forward a little more. He’s probably about halfway in, maybe a little more, and he stops again when Mary scrunches up her face.

“I’m gonna pull out slowly,” Steve says suddenly, and she opens her eyes to see the full-on concerned look. “Just relax, okay-”

“Don’t,” she commands, and Steve stops again, just holds perfectly still above her. Mary pulls in a few deep breaths and lets them back out before she nods. “Keep going.”

“Mary, I’m hurting you-”

“Would you rather it be someone else hurting me?” she asks. Something in Steve’s face darkens, and then he’s pushing back in, slowly but surely, until she can feel his balls against her.

“Tell me you’re okay,” Steve begs hoarsely, and his face is buried in her shoulder. “Tell me, Mary.”

“I’m okay,” she says into his ear, kissing him lightly on the cheek. It’s not really comfortable, it’s weird, and she has no idea how but she knows it’s got to get better. “I’m really okay, Steve.”

“Okay,” Steve replies, and it sounds like he doesn’t believe her, so Mary moves her hips a little, side to side, and feels him suck in a breath. She moves again, and his hips pull back a little and move forward again, like they’re on autopilot.

“Don’t,” he begs her. “Jesus, Mary, keep still, or I’m gonna lose it and hurt you.”

Mary just smirks and does it again and again and again until Steve gets with the program and starts moving with her. Moving _in_ her; she can feel every tiny little movement, and it’s not as great as she was led to believe, but this isn’t bad, not at all. Steve seems to be enjoying himself completely, at least; his mouth is hanging open and he’s panting. His hips move faster and faster until his whole body goes stiff, and Mary can feel him twitch inside her. He lets out this sound like she’s never heard before, something like a gasp and a moan at the same time, and she shivers as he carefully pulls out of her and collapses to her right.

Steve seems to be trying to catch his breath or something, so Mary rubs her hand up and down his back until he turns to face her. He looks like he’s half-dizzy, like if he stood up he’d just fall right back down next to her, and Mary grins at him. “It was that good?”

“Are you okay?” Steve asks instead of answering, reaching out and resting one of his hands on her stomach. It’s a little weird, affectionate and awkward at the same time.

Mary rolls her eyes. “I’m fine, Steve. “You didn’t hurt me, okay?”

“But-”

“You didn’t hurt me,” she repeats firmly. “I’m pretty sure you liked it more than I did, but hey, it gets better, right?”

Steve frowns, and she knows the face that’s coming next, the one that’s full of doubt and a little self-loathing. He’s probably already beating himself up over this. “Mary, we _can’t_ ,” he says.

Mary raises an eyebrow and looks down at her own body, then over and up the length of Steve’s. “I’m pretty sure you just lied to me,” she says calmly. “We pretty much proved that we can.”

“I mean again,” Steve says, pulling his hand back, and Mary’s a little surprised at how much she wants it back, how she wants Steve’s hands all over her again. “We shouldn’t have done it in the first place. What if Mom or Dad had woken up?”

“They didn’t,” Mary points out. “And anyway, I locked the door.”

“ _Ma-ry_ ,” Steve groans, and she mimics his tone when she replies, “ _Ste-eve_.”

“Okay,” Mary says, rolling over and sprawling all over Steve, her breasts pressed into his chest and her mouth inches from his. “Okay, one more thing, that’s all, and if you decide we can’t, then that’s it, okay?”

“One more thing,” Steve repeats a little skeptically, like he’s pretty sure she’s lying – which, to be fair, she totally is.

“One more thing,” she agrees, leaning down to kiss him. Steve responds immediately, opening his mouth when she licks at his lip, and yeah, this is something Mary could definitely do more often. It’s not what she has in mind, though, so she pulls back and licks her lips as she scoots her way down the bed.

She hasn’t done this before, but it’s not exactly rocket science, figuring out how the condom comes off. Mary even manages to get it tied without spilling it, which kind of feels like a victory. She tosses it without looking towards the trashcan, hearing it miss and hit the floor with a wet little sound.

“Gross,” Steve starts to say, but then Mary runs her fingers lightly over Steve’s soft dick, and he gasps in a breath instead of continuing with his complaint. Mary takes it in her hand, leaning in close to look. There’s a vein running up the bottom, dark against the pale skin, and she traces it from base to tip with her fingertip. Steve’s staring down at her, and his breathing is going fast again.

Mary runs her finger over the same path again, and Steve lets out that gasp-moan and drops his head back against the pillow. “This is your one more thing?” he asks weakly, but he’s not telling her to stop.

“Nope,” Mary counters, leaning forward and darting her tongue out to lick at the vein she’s been tracing.

“Oh _fuck_ ,” Steve gasps, pumping his hips a little. “Mary, oh my God, what-”

“If you ask me what I’m doing,” she tells him, “I’m going to stop.”

Steve falls absolutely silent.

“Try to stay still,” she adds, and then she wraps her mouth around the head of his dick and runs her tongue across the slit in the top.

Steve’s getting hard again, she notices, and it feels weird in her mouth; she bobs her head up and down experimentally, moving her tongue randomly and sucking every once in a while. It’s easy enough to fall into a rhythm, holding the base of Steve’s dick in her hand and moving her head and using her tongue, and out of the corner of her eye Mary can see that he’s got his hands twisted into the bedsheets. He’s gripping so hard that his knuckles are white.

“Okay,” she says as she pulls her mouth off of him, “so that’s how you do that.”

“Just-“ Steve says, and wow, his voice is different than it usually is, deeper and kind of rough. It sends that thrill through her again as Steve grabs at her, pulling her up to kiss her desperately, his dick rubbing all over her stomach, wet with her spit. He pulls back after a minute, breathing hard, and his hand is already reaching for the drawer in the bedstand. He tears the condom packet open and reaches down, but Mary takes it from him and repeats what he did before, rolling it on as he had.

“Ready?” she asks, on all fours above Steve, who nods, so she positions herself above him and sinks down.

Steve is making what’s pretty much becoming Mary’s favorite noise, that hitched breath-moan thing, and she gasps as she settles down against his hips. Steve thrusts up a little and it – sparks, or something, and suddenly Mary’s leaning a little bit back and moving just so, and Steve’s moving his hips with her again, and this is better, so much better. This must be what people were talking about, she thinks distantly, watching as Steve does something with his hand – licks his fingers, maybe, and that’s weird, but then he reaches towards her. His fingers rub between her legs, and – God, okay, _that’s_ it, that is definitely what it’s all about, and Mary lets out a sound she had no idea she could make as she slams her hips down and loses her mind.

“Holy shit,” Steve says when Mary opens her eyes again. He’s lying next to her, running his fingers through her sweaty hair, and he smiles a little when she looks up at him. “Better?”

Mary frowns as she thinks about it. “Did I yell?”

“You did,” Steve confirms, and there’s a smug little half-smile on his face, but Mary’s feeling pretty wrung out, so she just rolls her eyes and burrows into his side.

“Mary,” he says gently, and there’s that voice again, the serious one that she hates.

“Okay,” she says, suddenly tired. “Okay, never again, I get it. Just,” she hesitates, “just don’t kick me out? Please?”

“Of course not,” Steve replies immediately, pulling her into his chest almost protectively. “You have to put a shirt on, though.”

“And you should put some pants on,” she agrees with a yawn, already reaching around on the floor for the shirt that Steve had tossed off earlier. She pulls it on and finds her panties, too, before she crawls back beneath the sheets. She holds them open for Steve, who has walked over to the dresser to grab a pair of worn pajama bottoms from a drawer. He stops a few steps from the bed and shakes his head.

“You’re not going to make this easy, are you?” he asks as he slides in and scoops her up, wrapping his arms around her back. “You couldn’t have grabbed your own shirt?”

“Sorry,” she mumbles into his neck, even though she’s not. She’s already half asleep.

Mary wakes to someone running their fingers through her hair, and she feels warm and safe and kind of happy for the first time in a lot of mornings. She blinks her eyes open to see Steve staring at the ceiling, his hand absently moving over her hair as she rests her head on his chest.

“Morning,” she says, rubbing at her eyes and smiling up at Steve.

“Hey,” he replies, smiling back kind of gently. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” she says. “I’m a little sore, but yeah.” Mary closes her eyes again and rests her hand on Steve’s belly, a few inches from his waistband. She can feel the muscles underneath her hand stiffen as Steve sucks in a breath.

“Mary-” he starts, but she laughs and leans up to kiss his cheek.

“I know,” she says, sliding out of the bed and hunting around for her pants. She tugs Steve’s shirt off and yanks her own on, tossing his back at him. “Ready?”

Steve looks wary all of a sudden, like he’s realized that she’s about to do something he’s not going to like. “What are you-”

Mary smiles at him and opens the door. She waits a few seconds, then slams it. “Steve!” she yells. “I know you have it! Why would you take it? You can’t even use it!”

“What are you-” Steve splutters, but Mary narrows her eyes and jerks her head towards the door. Their mother’s voice calls up the stairs a second later.

“Steve, whatever it is, give it back to your sister. And Mary, do you think you could keep your voice down? There’s no need to yell like that.”

“Distraction,” Mary says simply as Steve finally climbs out of the bed and pulls the shirt on over his head.

“Good move,” he says approvingly, walking to the door. “Ready?”

“Let’s go,” Mary says, and they walk out of Steve’s bedroom, already arguing about whatever it is that Steve allegedly took as they make their way down to the kitchen.

“Steve, give it back to her,” Mom says when they walk into the kitchen. “And we’re out of your cereal, so you’re going to have to make do with some of Mary’s.”

Steve groans. “Mom, there’s so much sugar in that,” he complains, even as he’s pouring a bowl for himself. “Can we go to the store later?”

“I’ll go while you’re at practice,” she says, looking at Mary. “Mary, honey, are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Mary says, frowning and tilting her head to the side. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You’re walking a little funny,” Mom observes, and Mary can see Steve freeze out of the corner of her eye.

“Blame Mr. Army Man,” Mary grouses, and Steve turns a little green as his eyes widen. “He had me doing these squat exercise things last night. My legs are really sore.”

“They’re good for you,” Steve declares as he puts his orange juice down. His face is back to its normal color. Really, Mary wonders, he didn’t actually think she as going to _tell_ , did he? Like she wouldn’t be in as much trouble as he would?

“Don’t scare me like that,” Steve mutters as she sits down and digs into her cereal.

“Don’t be an idiot,” she mutters back, and Steve scowls at her, and Mom whacks him on the back of the head with the newspaper as she walks past, and Dad lumbers down the stairs and cracks a joke about something having to do with cars that makes Steve groan into his cereal. It’s just like any other Saturday morning, so Mary hides her smile behind her spoon and goes on eating.

Steve goes upstairs to shower and change and then Mom takes him to practice; Mary lounges on the lanai with her English homework, reading through two scenes in _Hamlet_ and wrinkling her nose at the weird language. Steve gets home early in the afternoon; they hold football practice in the mornings now, because it gets too hot later in the day, and he pops his head out the back door. “Is Mom around?” he calls.

“No,” Mary tells him, setting her book down. “She went to the store after she dropped you off, remember?”

Steve frowns. “Mary, that was, like, four hours ago. She should be home by now.”

“Probably,” she replies, unconcerned. “Maybe she went over to Aunt Julie’s or something.” Mom’s friend Julie lives nearby; sometimes Mom stops over there to visit. It’s not the first time she’s lost track of time at Aunt Julie’s.

“Gonna catch another shower,” Steve says, leaning on the doorframe. “If she comes home before I get out, ask her if it’s okay if Mark and Jace come over for dinner, okay?”

“Sure,” Mary replies, grabbing her stuff and heading in to watch some television. She’s earned it with all that Shakespeare.

Steve is just coming down the stairs, his hair still dripping, when there’s a knock on the door. Mary opens it up and smiles at the man standing on the other side. “Hey, Officer Na’ala. What can I do for you?”

“Mary,” he says, and Mary sees his face for the first time, really sees it, and she wants to slam the door in his face, wants to shut him out, run away.

“No,” she says, strange and hollow and empty. “No.”

“Mary,” Steve says, beside her in a flash, pulling her into his side and shielding her view from the officer in the doorway as she starts to cry. “Officer Na’ala, come in, let me get my dad.”

“No, Steve,” Mary sobs as he leads her to the staircase. “No, don’t, please.” She doesn’t know why she’s begging, what she’s begging for, only that Steve’s leading her away from it and she already knows, knows that going upstairs isn’t going to fix anything. “Steve, please.”

“Mary?” Dad leans out of the door to his bedroom. “Mary – Steve, what’s-”

“Officer Na’ala is here,” Steve says, and his voice sounds weird, too, like he’s afraid to put any emotion in it. It’s thick, sort of, heavy and clunky, and Mary watches as his words hit Dad in the chest like a fist.

“I’ll be downstairs,” Dad says faintly, and then Steve pulls Mary into his room and shuts the door.

The day passes in a weird sort of haze after that. Mary spends most of it on Steve’s bed, curled into her brother’s arms, sobbing until she doesn’t have anything left. Dad comes in and explains it in a stutter, repeating parts and skipping parts too, Mary’s sure, but he leaves after getting all the words out, doesn’t stop to hug them or anything. Mary starts to cry again after he shuts Steve’s door, and Steve gathers her up tightly and doesn’t let go. She can feel his tears falling silently into her hair.

There’s a viewing and a funeral and a wake, and through it all Mary’s got this gnawing sense of guilt in her stomach. When they get back to the house after all is said and done, after Mom’s in the ground and Dad’s just as buried in his investigation, she heads right for Steve’s room; she hasn’t slept alone since... since. There’s a pile of her clothing in the corner, and she pulls her dress up and off and drops it on top before grabbing the shirt and pants of Steve’s that she’s borrowed off of the bed and slipping into them. She doesn’t want to cry or scream or anything. She just wants to go to sleep and not wake up until the nightmare is over.

Steve wakes her up when he climbs in beside her later. “Sorry,” he says quietly, sliding his arm around her stomach and arranging himself along her back. Mary doesn’t say anything, just settles back into him, and it’s not long before she’s out again.

She wakes before he does the next time, and she’d get up and go down to the kitchen and try to figure out how on Earth to make dinner for what’s left of her family, but Steve has her pulled in so tightly that she’s pretty sure she won’t be able to get out. It’s not like she actually has any idea what to do about dinner, though, and he wakes up not long after that anyway.

“How are you?” he asks her sleepily, right into her ear, and Mary squeezes her eyes shut and blurts, “Is this our fault?”

Steve freezes for a second before rolling away from her in the bed, but it’s only so he can scoot until he’s lying face-to-face with her, looking her in the eye. “What – Mary, how could this be our fault?”

“What we did,” she replies, tears blurring her view and her words. “Do you think – maybe it’s like, I don’t know – we weren’t supposed to, and now – now Mom’s-”

“Shh,” Steve soothes, sitting up and pulling her with him, until he’s cradling her up against the headboard. “Mary, no, don’t think that, okay? This was some creep trying to go after Dad. That’s it, end of story, all right?”

“But what if you’re wrong?”

“I’m not wrong,” he says softly, rocking her back and forth a little. His hand is back in her hair, rubbing gently into her scalp, and Mary can slowly feel herself calm until she’s just leaning into Steve, holding him as much as he’s holding her. Steve switches to moving his hand through her hair, soothing himself as much as he is her, Mary knows.

“You’re sure?” Mary asks finally, and feels Steve nod into her hair.

“We’re not hurting anyone,” Steve says quietly. “It’s – it’s the opposite of that, right? So Mom getting hurt – that’s not retaliation for anything we’re doing.”

“Anything we’re doing,” Mary repeats, turning so she’s looking Steve in the eyes.

“Anything we’re doing,” he confirms, and then he leans in to kiss her on the forehead, then the cheek, then, hesitantly, on the lips.

Mary kisses him back immediately, bracing her hands on his chest as she moves from sitting across Steve’s legs to straddling his lap. His hands move to hold her face as he kisses her more and more urgently. Mary shifts forward a little and feels Steve’s hardness through his pants, and she rubs down gently as she pulls back to catch her breath.

“Is the door locked?” Steve asks, head falling back against the headboard.

“Dad’s at work,” Mary answers. “He left while you were sleeping, and you know he won’t be back for hours.”

“Good enough,” he decides, leaning back in to kiss her as his hand slips down her side. He fumbles with the ties on her pants and tugs; Mary kneels up, and he pulls her panties down, too. She wriggles the rest of the way out and kicks them to the floor while Steve gets his own clothing off. They’re naked faster this time, and Steve’s hands are more sure as he rolls the condom on and reaches out to grab Mary’s hand.

“It was better for you the second time,” he says, almost like he’s asking. “When you were sitting on top.”

“It was,” Mary agrees, but slides down onto her back anyway, hitching her knee up as she goes. “This way, though, let’s figure it out.”

Steve uses his fingers first, like he had last time, and his mouth wanders back and forth between her mouth and her breasts. Mary can hear the little noises she’s making by the time Steve looks up at her, his face somewhere around her stomach.

“Can I-” he asks, jerking his head towards where his fingers are resting inside her.

“If you really want to,” Mary replies, making a face, because she can’t imagine why anyone would want to put their mouth-

“Oh,” she gasps, because wow, okay, that’s new and different and good, really good. Steve’s tongue slips in around his fingers, and Mary thinks she might actually lose track of time a little as she curls her fingers into Steve’s hair and lets go.

“Okay,” Steve says after a while, laying his head on Mary’s thigh and looking up at her. “That’s kind of fun and kind of gross.”

“Great,” Mary replies, “good, I’m glad you figured that out, are you ready to-”

But Steve’s already moving up, and his lips are swollen and wet and red when he kisses her. He tastes different, and Mary tries to lick it off of his lips, the taste of herself. She feels Steve settle between her legs and then he’s pushing in, and there’s none of the pain, none of the discomfort from last time – it’s easy, the way he slides smoothly in, and they both breathe out when Steve buries himself completely. He stays still for a minute, like he’s trying to memorize how it feels, but then he rocks his hips gently and they both groan.

Steve keeps things slow and steady for a while, and it’s really a shame that Mary can never tell anyone about this, can’t gush to her friends about the faces Steve makes as he pushes and pulls back, the way his breath catches when Mary figures out how to squeeze the muscles inside around him, the way he leans down and kisses her like she’s something special, something that’s just his. He finally speeds up when Mary starts meeting his thrusts more insistently with her hips, and when his fingers reach down and start rubbing at her again, Mary cries out and arches her back and feels herself clamp down on Steve’s dick, and he chokes on air and pushes in hard and comes, too.

Mary can tell that Steve’s worn out – he hasn’t been sleeping well the past week, not that she blames him, and it takes him longer than it maybe should to lean up and roll the condom off. He turns and pulls Mary in as soon as he’s done, burying his face in her neck and kissing the skin there.

“We’re not hurting anyone,” he repeats, and it sounds like a promise, like reassurance.

“No,” Mary agrees, “we’re not,” and she falls asleep peacefully for the first time in a week.


End file.
